


A Rose By Any Other Name

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Consentacles, Don't Try This At Home, Double Penetration, Dry Orgasm, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Light Bondage, Light Masochism, M/M, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Other, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Prostate Massage, Requited Unrequited Love, Sounding, Tentacle Sex, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 10:29:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16217168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: You can find some interesting things in those old, abandoned thaigs...*******As a general warning: it's all 100% consensual, but there isn't a whole lot of negotiation on specific acts ahead of time, and there are a few (quickly corrected) mis-steps. Nobody gets hurt, or even actually upset, but I know that's a sensitive issue for some.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DracoCustos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoCustos/gifts), [hobbitdragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/gifts).



> There were a couple other people who could consider this gifted to them, but sounding isn't for everyone, and I didn't want to gift this to anyone who would be bothered by it. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite that PWP tag, there is some setup first. If you want to skip straight to the smut, start with chapter 2. I won't be offended: the only reason this fic _has_ chapters is to make it easy to just start with the sex (even though I totally forgot to put this note on until 12 hours after I posted the story, ooops).
> 
> If you want to know how they got to the smut, read on!

At first, Alistair doesn't know what it is they've found. It's just another room in another abandoned mansion in another abandoned thaig. Better preserved than most, but not the best they've seen in the days--weeks?--they've been down here. The most interesting thing about this room is its door, which was hidden so well and locked so thoroughly they all expected to find a royal treasury's worth of gold on the other side.

They were, it turns out, doomed to disappointment. Whatever the room held before, there's nothing left now that looks worth the magical and mundane locks they had to defeat to open the door. If anything, the room looks like the study of some moderately wealthy merchant or scholar. A set of shelves takes up most of one wall, filled with books of various sizes, while a comfortably padded chair and footstool sit beside it. Above the chair hangs a small crystal ball that began to glow softly as soon as they stepped into the room, casting enough light to read easily.

The only thing that doesn't fit is the...thing in the center of the room.

From his place just inside the open door, Alistair looks at The Thing for the third time, squinting as if that will help him figure out what it is. Maybe it's a statue? It looks vaguely like a rosebud just before it opens, if rosebuds grew anywhere near that big: the base of it melds smoothly into the floor, while the tip reaches the center of Alistair's chest. Still, the curving, sinuous lines do look like the leaves that cover a flower bud, and people make statues that look like all kinds of odd things. A giant rosebud isn't all that strange, not compared to some of the things Alistair has seen in the last few months.

At least a giant statue of a rose isn't likely to try and kill him. These days, that's a blessing from the Maker all by itself.

"I see no traps," Zevran says, startling Alistair into stepping back, nearly onto Morrigan.

True to form, Morrigan has a few things to say about that, none of them complimentary. Alistair flushes and looks at his feet, trying not to meet anyone's eyes. Why is it that he always ends up looking like a fool whenever Zevran is around?

"Shall we see what we might find?" Zevran asks, interrupting Morrigan's description of Alistair's presumed parentage. "I find myself curious why anyone would go to such trouble to protect this room."

"Were we anywhere else," Morrigan says, "I would guess this to be a mage's study. But in a dwarven thaig..." Rather than finish the sentence, she just shrugs.

"Very curious," Zevran says. He looks around the room, lingering on the rosebud statue with a faint, puzzled frown. "Is there magic about?"

"Just preservation spells, and a spell for light." Morrigan tips her chin in the direction of the glowing ball hanging over the chair. "Well, and what was on the door. If there was anything else, it's either dissipated or gone dormant."

"Maybe there's another secret door?" Alistair says doubtfully.

"It would be odd," Zevran says, "to guard a door so carefully only to have another hidden door beyond it." His gaze sweeps the room again. "But this is an odd place."

Since he then begins to examine the walls, Alistair decides to take that as a yes to looking around. Morrigan goes immediately to the strange statue, which leaves Alistair with the books.

The first half dozen he checks are all in Dwarven. Probably some archaic form of it, too, a form no one else will understand. Alistair certainly doesn't, but then, he wouldn't even if they were written in a modern script.

For the sake of thoroughness, he pulls down another book from a different shelf and lets it fall open on its own. All he's interested in is whether it's written in a language he can read. He's so focused on the script that when the book falls open to an illustration that fills both pages, he flips impatiently backward. It isn't until he finds the third illustration that he realizes what he's seeing, and then he nearly drops the book in shock.

Naked bodies tangle together on the page, caught in a number of improbable positions as they fondle and kiss and fuck each other in every possible way. It's impossible to separate any small group out from the larger crowd, everyone linked together by at least one set of hands reaching out to another. A man on his knees sucks one cock while his hands are busy stroking two others. The man whose cock is being sucked is using his whole hand to fuck a woman sprawled across a bed, and she in turn has another woman sitting across her face.

It goes on like that, and Alistair's gaze follows the path from one person to the next, his eyes growing steadily wider. When he finds himself once again staring at the man on his knees, Alistair turns back to the page where the book opened, and sure enough, that illustration is just as obscene.

In a daze, Alistair flips through the book, ignoring the text in favor of the illustrations. Every one of them is more of the same, and his cock gets harder the longer he looks. The recruits' barracks was full of gossip, but it's one thing to hear it whispered about and another to see it drawn and painted in meticulous detail. Whether it's all physically possible or not, his cock doesn't much care.

Near the end of the book, he finds one picture that makes him stop. There are only two people in the scene this time, making it positively staid relative to the rest of the book. And yet, Alistair can't stop looking at it.

On the page, a man lies naked on a bed, his head hanging off the side and his wrists tied to the bedposts. Another man stands beside the bed, his cock hard and just touching the first man's upper lip. The bound man's mouth is open wide, an eager invitation that the other man looks more than happy to accept.

It isn't the pose that holds Alistair's attention, though; it's the bound man's face. With his head upside down, his hair covers his ears, and there's nothing else to mark him as clearly elven or human. Still, the lines of his face, the wiry muscles of his arms and chest, all remind Alistair very strongly of Zevran. And once Alistair has made that connection, his brain is quick to cast himself in the role of the other man, his cock less than an inch away from sliding into-

Zevran makes an interested hum at his elbow, and this time, Alistair lets out a very undignified yelp as he drops the book and all but leaps away from it.

"What-...I mean, you-...how long have-..." He breaks off, flushing, as Morrigan starts to laugh behind him.

"Find something interesting?" she asks, mocking.

Alistair closes his eyes and braces himself. Zevran has to have seen what he was looking at, and there's no way he won't say something. The sorts of jokes he tells, the way he teases, it's inevitable, and the blush burning Alistair's face will only provide additional fuel.

"My apologies," Zevran says, "I should not have startled you like that."

It's about the last thing Alistair was expecting, and his eyes pop open to stare at Zevran every bit as intently as he studied the pictures in the book. Zevran's head is tilted to the side, an inquisitive expression on his face. There's no sign of laughter, no hint that he's about to say something that will make Alistair wish for the Maker to strike him dead on the spot.

Zevran looks away first--another surprise--and bends down to pick up the book. It closed as it fell, thank the Maker, and Zevran doesn't open it, just slots it back into its place on the shelf.

"What did you find?" Morrigan asks again. She's closer now, and she sounds impatient.

"Do you, by any chance, read Dwarven?" Zevran asks.

"Dwarven?" she asks, surprised. "No, not really."

"Then we shall never know," Zevran says. His tone is casual, unconcerned, and he turns toward her as if there was nothing on the shelf but the driest of history books. "Perhaps they might be of value to a collector of such things, but I doubt their price will be worth the effort to bring them to the surface, not when we have so much else to carry."

Alistair doesn't dare turn around and let her see his face. It would give him away immediately, and while he doesn't understand why Zevran is helping him, he's not about to ruin it. Instead, he kneels awkwardly and begins to fiddle with a strap on one of his greaves, as if it needs adjusting.

Morrigan says something Alistair can't make out over his confusion and the thudding of his heart. All he cares about is her tone, which is now bored and a little irritated. Even better, her voice is moving away from him, toward the door back into the hallway.

When he thinks she's out of sight, he stands, too aware of Zevran beside him. They're very close, so close that if Alistair turned, Zevran would be close enough to kiss.

His face turns red again, and he clears his throat, trying to get his thoughts back on the right track. "Uh, thank you," he manages. He intended to stop there, but his mouth keeps going, stumbling over an incoherent explanation. "I didn't know what was...um...I mean, I didn't...I wasn't...I've never-"

The realization that he's about to admit he's never had sex generates enough panic that his brain regains control over his mouth, snapping it shut.

Zevran is quiet for so long that Alistair finally looks at him from the corner of one eye. His expression is thoughtful, but when he notices Alistair looking at him, he smiles. It isn't the seductive smile, or the mocking one, that Alistair was expecting. Instead, it's a smile Alistair has rarely seen on his face, warm without being flirtatious. As close as they're standing, it's intimate, and that's the last thing Alistair needs to be thinking about right now.

He takes a quick step back and looks away. "Yeah, so, um, thanks."

"Think nothing of it," Zevran says cheerfully. "Shall we rejoin the others?"

Alistair mumbles agreement and follows him out of the room. On the threshold, he pauses to look back at the books, then he shakes himself and closes the door firmly.

###

They find the others in the mansion's front hall. None of them have turned up anything worth taking along, and although Zevran mentions the room they found, his description makes it sound like what it looked like at first glance: someone's study, long-abandoned and not terribly interesting.

Unfortunately for Alistair, that makes the house seem like the perfect spot to set up camp. And for everyone else, perhaps it is. For Alistair, it's awful. All he can think about is that room and its books. He didn't get a chance to look through the whole book, or to really spend time examining any of the pictures, or to look through the rest of the books to see what they might show him. One half of one book was an education. What do the rest hold?

He fends off his curiosity all the way through supper and his turn on watch, but after he wakes Sten for the next watch and lies down in his bedroll to sleep, those pictures begin to dance in front of his eyes. One after another in an endless parade, and that last picture he looked at, the one with the man who reminded him so much of Zevran, appears more than any of the others. Possibly because it fits so well with other fantasies he's had of Zevran.

It has to be nearly the end of Sten's watch before Alistair gives up and crawls out of his bedroll. "I need to walk a bit," he says quietly, belting on his sword. "Tell whoever has the next watch not to worry if I'm not back."

"Tell him yourself," Sten says, his tone not as harsh as his words. "I'm done for tonight, so I was about to wake him."

Sten flicks a finger toward one of the sleeping bodies, one whose blond hair spills over the pack he's using as a pillow. Because of course it's Zevran. When they set the watch shifts for tonight, Alistair hadn't thought beyond the relief of knowing he wouldn't have to wake Zevran or be woken by him. Now he's regretting that lack of attention.

"Tell him for me," Alistair says. He hopes the panic rising in his chest doesn't come through in his voice, but he doesn't stay to find out.

Their camp is in one corner of the mansion's main hall. At the far end, two staircases curve up in opposite directions, disappearing into red-tinted shadows that the house's few remaining lights can't quite disperse entirely. Alistair takes the stairs in the opposite direction from the room they found, grateful now for the shadows that worried him earlier. Only once he's two stories up does he turn in the right direction. It's ridiculous to be so careful, as if anyone will follow to spy on him, but he can't bring himself to do otherwise.

The door opens easily, despite his fears--or were they hopes?--that it might have locked itself behind them. As soon as he steps inside, the light over the chair begins to glow, a softer light than the red glare cast by the lights in the hallway. Sweat beads along his forehead as he shuts the door, and his hair is damp with it by the time he makes it to the bookcase.

Zevran tucked the book away so precisely that Alistair isn't sure exactly which one it is, so he starts at the left end of the top shelf and works his way across. Before, he'd grabbed books at random, just trying to get a feel for what's here. Now he's methodical in his search, replacing books that are nothing but text and setting aside those with pictures. By the time he finds the book he was looking at earlier, he has half a dozen others to look at, too.

The chair is conveniently placed right beside the bookshelves, but when Alistair goes to sit in it, he discovers that it's already occupied by another book. This one is slim, tucked down between the arm and the cushion of the chair, exactly the way someone might have left it if they intended to come back to it shortly.

Alistair flips through it quickly, then has to dive to catch something as it falls from between the pages. His hand closes over something colder and harder than he was expecting, and when he opens his fist, he finds a ring.

A ring? Who uses a ring as a bookmark? A glance through the book shows a telltale imprint where the ring must have sat, but whether that particular page has anything to do with the ring, Alistair can't say.

The ring itself is unexceptional, just a thin gold band without any jewels or decorative markings. Alistair has never had much interest in jewelry, and this ring wouldn't interest him either, if not for the mystery of why it was tucked inside a book. Was someone trying to hide it? As if the room itself wasn't hidden enough.

Lost in thought, Alistair tests the ring idly on each finger, more to fidget than because he has any real interest in wearing it. It doesn't look large enough to fit him, but in the end, it slides easily over his smallest finger.

Magic surges behind him, and Alistair whips around, drawing his sword even as he gathers himself to smite any mage or revenant trying to sneak up on him. Only, there's nothing there, nothing except the statue he'd puzzled over earlier. The room is quiet and still, nothing out of place except for the books Alistair himself has moved.

But even as he thinks that, the statue begins to move.

Alistair almost smites it on instinct, but he stops himself in time and just watches as it spins in place. Each turn is quicker than the one before, and as it turns, it begins to unfurl, exactly like a rosebud opening. The "leaves" lengthen as they open, stretching up and out as more leaves uncurl from the center and lengthen in turn, until they all look more like vines than leaves.

By the time the statue stops spinning, Alistair can't count how many vines are reaching up toward the ceiling in sinuous lines, all of them waving lazily in a breeze only they can feel. They're translucent now, more like crystal than granite, if crystal was soft enough to bend and sway. Hidden in the center, something glows with a faint pink light that infuses every vine.

Moving cautiously, Alistair sheathes his sword and raises his hand to look at the ring. He taps it lightly with his thumb, and sure enough, the vines shiver and begin to twist around each other. It doesn't answer the question of _why_ , though. Why would someone make something like this? Why put it here, in a secret room full of obscene books and not much else? And why put the ring inside one of those books?

Someone coughs delicately from behind him, and again Alistair whirls around, sword in hand. At the current rate, he won't have to worry about the darkspawn killing him, because his heart isn't going to take much more of this.

Zevran smiles at him from the doorway, and oh Maker, that's not helping Alistair's heartrate at all.

"I must apologize," Zevran says, "but there really was no way to tell you I was here that would not startle you."

Alistair's mind goes blank. It's like being in a blizzard, except instead of snow, he's blinded by the vision of Zevran naked, on his back, mouth open and waiting for Alistair's cock.

When Alistair doesn't say anything, Zevran says, "I reached the end of my watch, and you had yet to return. It concerned me."

That's enough to jolt Alistair's brain partially out of its paralysis. Has he really been here through an entire watch? Admittedly, their watches are short now, with so many people to take a turn, but still.

He thinks back over his unnecessarily wandering path to get from their camp to this room, and his search through the books. It's possible he was a little too thorough with the books, checking each carefully for any pictures before moving to the next. It's also possible he might have lingered when he did find pictures worth lingering over.

The more he thinks about it, the more his face heats, and when he remembers Zevran looking over his shoulder earlier, it's all he can do not to hide behind the chair and wait to die of embarrassment. "You knew I'd be here, didn't you?"

Zevran turns one hand palm up, his expression faintly apologetic. "It was the first place I looked, yes." He's quiet, as if waiting for Alistair to speak, but Alistair has no idea what to say. Eventually, Zevran adds, "There is no shame in being curious."

Surprised at the lack of teasing, Alistair dares to look directly at him rather than dart glances from the corner of one eye. Zevran looks back, no smirk hiding at the corners of his mouth or eyes. It might be the most serious Alistair has ever seen him, but Alistair still has no idea what to say.

When he remains silent, a small frown creases Zevran's forehead as he brushes his fingers over the door. "I have no desire to interrupt, if you wish privacy."

He pauses, giving Alistair a chance to say something. It would be more helpful if his voice wasn't quite so low, if his pupils weren't blown wide in the dim light. As it is, Alistair can't do anything but stand there as his brain incorporates both into the fantasy it's already built.

"But if you wish," Zevran says, still in that almost-whisper, "I can show you what your new friend can do."

"New friend?" Alistair croaks.

Zevran tips his chin toward the vines, which have twisted themselves into a tight spiral that has none of the lazy calm they showed before.

" _Is_ it a friend?" Alistair asks, because he still hasn't decided whether it's some kind of golem, designed to guard the room much like the spells on the door.

A smile flickers over Zevran's face and is gone. "It can be quite friendly," he says. "It can also be quite unfriendly, if you wish."

What? Why would he want it to be unfriendly?

His confusion must show on his face, because Zevran says, "Would you like me to show you?"

"Uh, sure," Alistair says. Then his brain catches up to his mouth, and he adds hastily, "But, um, friendly only? Not unfriendly." He's had quite enough of things trying to kill him, and he has no interest in being mauled by a statue. Another statue.

"Of course." Zevran closes the door and steps closer, holding out his hand, palm up. When Alistair stares at it blankly, Zevran says, "The ring?"

"Oh, right, yeah, um, sure." Blushing again, Alistair cuts off his own babbling and slides the ring from his finger so he can drop it in Zevran's palm.

As soon as the ring leaves his finger, the statue begins to turn again, the vines shrinking and turning grey. Before they can shrink too far, Zevran fits the ring over his own index finger. The statue grinds to a stop and then turns back in the other direction, the vines stretching up toward the ceiling as they start to glow again.

For a while, that's the most interesting thing that happens. Zevran just stands there, staring at the vines as they drift and sway like seaweed in a gentle current. Occasionally one will move against the current, or twist itself briefly into a knot, but that's all, and they make no sound at all. The longer the silence stretches, the more Alistair wants to fidget, and he loops his fingers around his belt to remind himself not to shake Zevran into doing anything besides stand there.

About the time Alistair begins to wonder if this is some strange joke on Zevran's part, one of the vines separates itself from the others and reaches out toward him. He steps back involuntarily, his hand going to his sword.

"I promised you friendly," Zevran says. He's smiling a little, but there's no mockery in it.

"Right," Alistair mutters, and when the vine reaches toward him again, he holds his ground.

It gets to within a few inches of him, then curves itself around in a loose spiral and hangs there like it's waiting for something.

"Touch it, if you wish," Zevran says.

Alistair doesn't wish, but he braces himself and does it anyway, brushing the tip of a finger along the outer edge of one coil. It's cool to the touch, smooth as the finest glass. Or smooth as polished crystal, he supposes.

He's immediately distracted from the thought as the light under the vine's surface coalesces into a brighter spot that chases after his finger. Curious, Alistair touches it again, tracing the curve around and around, watching that point of light following behind. It looks like a tiny comet, leaving a brighter trail of light in its wake that fades slowly away into the ambient glow of the crystal itself.

Now past curious and into intrigued, Alistair starts to lay his palm against it, then hesitates and looks at Zevran for permission.

Zevran is watching him with an expression Alistair can't immediately place. Is that...guilt? But what does Zevran have to feel guilty about?

"Is it all right?" Alistair asks. "If I touch it like that."

"Ah," Zevran starts, then coughs once to clear his throat. "You may do as you wish to it, but before you do, tell me. Is its purpose plain to you now?"

Alistair looks back at the statue and the glowing coil in front of him. "Not...really?" He didn't mean for it to sound like a question, so he tries again. "I mean, it's pretty. And I guess you could have light wherever you wanted, if it moves like that."

Zevran makes an odd choking noise and clears his throat again. "It is indeed quite lovely, but..." He hesitates, which is nearly as strange on him as guilt. "Allow me to show you one more thing?"

His tone is hardly reassuring, but Alistair nods and waits as Zevran concentrates. The vine turns opaque, its glow dimming without disappearing completely, though the other vines remain translucent. This time when Alistair touches it, it's slightly warmer than his skin, and the surface gives a little under his finger in a way that reminds him of...

Oh.

He snatches his hand back as he blushes so hard his ears feel like they're on fire. Words escape him again, and all he can do is stand there, fingers curled into a tight fist. The finger that touched the vine is as hot as his face, as if it's still resting against that soft almost-skin.

"Precisely," Zevran says, and while he's still cheerful, now it sounds forced, tense. "If you still wish to touch it, you may, of course--" despite the offer, he's already pulling off the ring, the statue collapsing back on itself "--but I think perhaps now that your curiosity has been satisfied, I will leave you in peace as I promised."

"Wait!" Alistair's voice is tight, pitched up into a range he hasn't hit in years. It would be embarrassing if his face wasn't already burning. "I mean, _please_ wait."

About to set the ring down on one of the shelves, Zevran hesitates. "Wait?"

Several things go through Alistair's head in quick succession. The first is the guilty look he caught on Zevran's face, the one that hadn't made any sense at the time but makes perfect sense now. The second is Zevran offering to show him what the statue can do, in a voice too intimate for casual conversation. And the third is that Zevran doesn't have to be here at all. He said he wanted to check that Alistair was all right, but he could have checked that simply by peeking in the door. He didn't have to say anything to reveal his presence.

"Can I?" Alistair tries, choking on the rest of the sentence and hoping Zevran will fill it in.

No such luck. "Can you...?" Zevran prompts, expression unreadable.

"Is it all right...I mean, would you mind if...if I touched it? While you controlled it. Would it bother you?"

The silence that follows stretches out long enough that Alistair bites his lip anxiously. Maybe he misread the situation. He doesn't have a lot of experience flirting with anyone, and none at all with someone as experienced as Zevran. That was probably the most awkward proposition Zevran has ever received, and now he's trying to figure out how to let Alistair down gently.

Except he's drawing back the hand that was reaching for the bookshelf, and he's still holding the ring. Alistair watches, heart pounding and mouth dry, as Zevran rolls the ring between thumb and forefinger, flipping it around so it settles over the very tip of his finger without sliding all the way down.

"Are you certain?" Zevran asks.

Alistair nods. He knows it's too enthusiastic for him to make any pretense at sophistication, but he's already made a fool of himself several times tonight alone, and Zevran is still here.

A smile curves one corner of Zevran's mouth. "Then I am very sure it will not bother me," he says as he pushes the ring the rest of the way down his finger.


	2. Chapter 2

The statue springs to life again, light suffusing each vine as they rise to the ceiling. Even before all of them have finished forming, one separates itself out and stretches toward Alistair. This time, he holds out his hand for it, and it slides across his palm, curling around his wrist and a little way down his arm.

He makes a loose fist around it, marveling at the heat and the softness as another blush spreads across his face. The vine feels exactly like a cock, if cocks were longer than Alistair is tall.

Without meeting Zevran's eyes, Alistair says, "You knew what it was for. Have you, um, seen others like it?"

"Not quite like it," Zevran says, as if this is the most normal conversation in the world. "I thought it merely decorative until I saw its little secret."

"You thought I wouldn't, um, wouldn't want to touch it, if I knew what it was for." He's only half listening to himself, too fascinated by the vine to pay much attention. "Do...do people think...I mean, do other people think this is...think this is strange?"

By the curious look Zevran gives him, he's just revealed way more about his lack of experience than he meant to. Nothing he can do about it now except wait and pretend he isn't embarrassed by how little he knows. It's not as if either the Chantry or the Templars spent much time on anything except, "Don't," and the Wardens assumed he already knew everything he needed to know. Barracks gossip among a bunch of adolescent boys didn't cover animate statues.

"Some would consider it strange, or not to their liking," Zevran says. "But I could say the same of anything, and our new friend can do so many interesting things, most would find something to enjoy."

"It can get warmer or colder." Alistair speaks slowly, trying not to stammer. "And change how it feels." He can't say "get harder" unless he wants to blush even more. "Does it do anything else?"

"Oh yes," Zevran says, surprise clear in his voice. Then he laughs, delighted. "Or at least, those I have seen in the past were capable of many things. Shall we find out what this one does?"

Alistair's face is too hot again, but he nods.

In response, the vine wrapped around Alistair's wrist unwinds itself and pulls away from him. It hovers in the air, its surface disturbed by a series of ripples that coalesce gradually into rings that run its entire length. The rings change to bumps, which in turn change to tiny vines growing off from the main stem, all of them waving gently.

Before Alistair has figured out why someone would want any of that, it changes again, the smaller vines melting into the larger one as it thickens. By the time the vine is as thick as his wrist, Alistair's eyes are wide, and it's not done yet, growing thicker and thicker until it's as big around as his thigh. If he was sitting, he would cross his legs defensively. Thankfully, Zevran thins it out again before Alistair can say something, proving that it can shrink just as much as it can grow. It gets all the way down to hair-thin, then grows back to its original size.

Another vine splits off from the others, this one no thicker than Alistair's smallest finger. It stretches out toward Zevran, who runs his fingers over it as if testing something. Whatever he was checking for, he must find it, because he nods in satisfaction and holds out his hand palm up.

The vine hits him, three hard strikes across his palm that land so fast Alistair doesn't have time to do more than open his mouth in warning. His hand goes for his sword as the vine rears back for another strike.

"You have no need of your sword," Zevran says. "I have it well under control."

Alistair watches the red marks blooming on Zevran's palm and thinks about what that means. Eventually, he asks, "You wanted it to hit you?"

"Something else that is not to everyone's taste." The vine strikes his palm again, five times in a row, and Zevran breathes out on the last one. It's a soft sound, too quiet to be a groan, but it makes Alistair shiver like Zevran touched him.

It takes him three tries to get his throat to work. "But it is to your taste."

"Very much so." Zevran flexes his marked hand, curling the fingers into a tight fist and then stretching them out so the skin pulls taut. "I did say your new friend could be quite unfriendly, if you wished it to be."

"Um," Alistair says. "Um, no, I think I like friendly better." He gets hurt often enough while fighting; he doesn't have any interest in volunteering for more pain. Though he has to admit, if only to himself, that watching the red lines appear on Zevran's skin is vastly more arousing than he would have guessed, this time yesterday.

"What else does it do?" he asks.

Zevran makes a thoughtful noise, and Alistair looks at him, trying to read his expression. Cautious? Excited? Reading people has never been Alistair's strength, and he's rarely regretted that more than he does right now.

"It will likely do a number of other things," Zevran says slowly, "but many will be clearer if I could demonstrate."

"Demonstrate." He knows exactly what Zevran means, and his heartbeat goes from quick to galloping. "Demonstrate on who?"

"On myself," Zevran says. "I believe some of it will be very distracting first-hand, and I would hate for such a demonstration to be wasted."

"Right," Alistair says, smiling despite himself. "Or you just want to show off."

"That as well," Zevran says with a dismissive wave. "But as I am quite lovely, I can hardly be blamed if I wish to share it with others."

He is, to use his own words, quite lovely, both in and out of his clothes. Alistair would know, having sneaked more than his share of guilty looks over the last few months.

"That's so generous of you," Alistair says, rather than admit to any of that.

"I know." Zevran presses a hand to his chest and bows his head modestly. "It is but one of my many virtues."

His hand goes smoothly from melodramatic gesture to unfastening his shirt, and any response Alistair might have made vanishes. He's aware of Zevran watching him, but he can't look away. All he can do is follow Zevran's hands and wait for each new bit of skin to be revealed.

Zevran doesn't make a show of it, but he also doesn't hurry. Instead, he moves like he's undressing for bed alone, and that's more intimate than the most seductive dance. It's private, something personal Zevran is letting him see. The flush burning Alistair's ears now has nothing to do with embarrassment.

When he's naked, Zevran pauses, and Alistair swallows. His eyes follow the line of every muscle, the curve of each tattoo, as he memorizes them for later with the same intensity he applies to memorizing the lines of Zevran's cock or the curves of his ass when he turns away.

Almost close enough to touch the mass of vines, Zevran pauses and looks back. "Can I persuade you to put aside your sword? I have no desire to be stabbed if something surprises you."

"Do you plan to surprise me?"

Zevran grin is wide enough to be alarming. "Only in the best possible ways. However, it would rather ruin the effect if you had to fetch Wynne."

Of all the people Alistair doesn't want to think about right now, Wynne is very nearly the top of the list. He concentrates on taking off his sword instead.

Halfway there, he hesitates and frowns at the vines. "This could be a trap."

"True," Zevran says. He doesn't look in the least concerned. "But given the rather naughty reading material, it seems much more likely that this is nothing more than it appears."

"I guess." Alistair gives the vines a last frown as he finishes taking off his sword. "What if it isn't?"

Zevran shrugs, still grinning. "I can think of many worse ways to die."

Alistair snorts out a laugh. "Yeah, of course."

"Ah, one last thing," Zevran says as a vine curls around his wrist. "While you prefer that our new friend remain friendly, I enjoy some, shall we say, less than friendly gestures." He raises his hand to show Alistair his palm and the red lines across it. "Be assured that anything it does is what I want, but if something disturbs you, you have only to ask and I will make it stop." He flashes that grin again. "There is no shortage of options from which I can choose."

Unsure what some of that means, Alistair nods anyway. He understands "ask me and I'll stop" perfectly, and he's reasonably sure that's the important part.

Then he has cause to rethink that, because he's no sooner nodded than a dozen vines lash out at once. They wrap around Zevran's wrists and ankles, dragging him into the air to hang there, arms and legs stretched wide apart.

Alistair steps forward before he catches himself and deliberately steps back to where he was. Unfriendly. Right.

That warning doesn't stop Alistair from watching anxiously as the vines snake over Zevran's body, turning him so his back is to Alistair. His muscles are loose and relaxed, no sign that he's struggling or afraid, and Alistair takes a deep breath in through his nose, trying to calm his own nerves. If this is what Zevran wants, Alistair doesn't want him to stop. He just wishes he had enough experience to know whether Zevran is actually in danger.

One of the vines stretches itself thinner, then lashes out. It lands squarely across both cheeks of Zevran's ass, making him jerk, his muscles tightening for a moment before they relax again.

More blows fall, landing on his ass and thighs and back. It's mesmerizing, the sound of the vines hitting skin and the sight of the red lines they leave behind. After a score of blows, Zevran adds to it with soft groans that occasionally rise into whines, his body twitching at each hit.

After another dozen blows, Alistair circles around him, half dazed but needing to see Zevran's face. It contorts into a grimace each time he's hit, but his cock is hard, and he doesn't look overwhelmed. He certainly looks more connected to reality than Alistair feels.

He must know Alistair is there, because his eyes open almost as soon as Alistair can see them. Sweat is running down his face, and his chest is rising and falling in rapid heaves, but he smiles when he meets Alistair's gaze. It's not the weak, tremulous smile of someone suffering for a good cause, either. It's the lazy smile of someone who's gotten exactly what he wanted. Alistair relaxes, and when the next blow lands, he can appreciate the effect it has on Zevran without anxiety tightening his stomach.

Zevran must have been biting his lips earlier: they're red now, wet and slightly parted, and Alistair thinks again of what it would be like to watch his cock slide into that mouth. His cock is definitely interested in that idea, and he cups it through his trousers, trying to relieve the ache as it grows hard again, now he's no longer worrying.

With a start, he remembers Zevran's eyes are open and tears his own gaze away from Zevran's mouth, dropping his hand from his cock just as fast.

"Please," Zevran murmurs, and Alistair's cock is also very interested in that, in Zevran begging in a rough voice.

He's so distracted he loses whatever Zevran says next. It must have been a question, because Zevran is looking at him expectantly. Shit. "I...what?"

The vines go still, and for a few moments, there's no sound except Zevran's rapid breathing and the soft click as he swallows. "There is little point in putting on a show," he says after a while, his voice less rough than before, "if the audience does not appreciate it."

Not quite sure he understands, Alistair says cautiously, "So it's all right if I, um...?"

"More than all right," Zevran assures him. "In fact, it would please me greatly to watch you stroke your cock."

It's Alistair's turn to swallow thickly, his whole body electrified by that one sentence. His mind goes blank, able to think of only one response, which is to unlace his trousers and fist his cock. Zevran's eyes follow the movement, his lips parting in surprised pleasure. That eager gaze is enough all by itself to make Alistair's hips jerk, thrusting his cock up into his fist. His hips jerk again when Zevran licks his lips slowly.

"You should make yourself more comfortable," Zevran says. His voice has gone low again, and his eyes are still on Alistair's hand moving over his cock.

Comfort isn't something Alistair is much interested in right now. The tension winding through him is better, the ache in his balls and the painful anticipation of whatever happens next. "I'm fine," he mumbles, not caring that the words are slurred.

"At least sit," Zevran says.

Sit? Sit where? On the floor?

Zevran looks to one side briefly, pointedly. Alistair follows his gaze to the chair, and all right, sitting might be a good idea. As lightheaded as he feels, falling over is a real danger.

He drops into the chair, but before he can settle, Zevran says, "It would be easier to enjoy the sight of you stroking your cock if there were not so many clothes in the way."

A little self-conscious, Alistair pulls off his shirt and then bends to unlace his boots. He knows he's reasonably attractive, but he fumbles the laces on his boots anyway. Zevran has almost certainly seen plenty of people who were more than "reasonably attractive," and Alistair can't help but worry. He already knows he can't compete in terms of skill; what if his body is also a disappointment?

But the look he gets when he's finally naked is definitely not disappointed. Zevran smiles wickedly, and his voice is full of satisfaction as he says, "Much better."

Tongue-tied, Alistair leans back in the chair rather than try to say anything. He can't babble if he stays quiet.

The chair is comfortable, broad enough that he can spread his knees and give the hand on his cock room to work. As soon as he's settled, the vines begin to move again, lashing Zevran's ass and thighs with sharp strokes that make him tense against the vines holding him in place. Occasionally, his eyes close for a particularly hard blow, but they always open again and return to Alistair, flicking back and forth between his face and his hand.

A vine twists around Zevran's thigh, catching Alistair's attention. It's slightly thicker than the vines whipping Zevran's back, and its surface glistens in the room's soft light. Wherever it touches Zevran's skin, it leaves behind a smear of something slick.

The newest vine slides behind Zevran's balls, and a heartbeat later, Zevran's head falls back as he arches, pulling sharply against the vines. Alistair's hand stops stroking his cock, his mouth slightly open as he gasps for breath, wanting to stare at the tense curve of Zevran's body, but also wanting to see the things he can't from this position: the vine sliding into Zevran, and the expression that goes with the harsh groan that's forcing its way out of his throat. What does his face look like when he's being fucked?

Zevran relaxes back into the vines just as they start to rearrange him. A few of them pull his knees up to his chest and tilt his hips while another pair spread the cheeks of his ass apart. It gives Alistair a perfect view of the vine fucking him, and he has to take his hand off his cock before he finishes way too soon.

Another one of the glistening vines appears, sliding over Zevran's hip and around to his ass. It rubs at his hole, twisting around the one already fucking him before pushing in. Zevran shudders, hips rocking, and Alistair grabs the arms of the chair with both hands, digging his fingers deep into the padding.

He squeezes tighter as a third vine joins the other two, then a fourth, and a fifth. They curl around each other, sometimes moving together, sometimes not, all of them fucking Zevran at once. Whatever it is that makes them slick, it's milky white rather than clear, and it's all over his thighs and the cheeks of his ass. It makes him look thoroughly debauched, as if he's been fucked by a dozen men.

Alistair lets go of the arms of the chair to curl his hands into fists instead, driving his fingernails deep into his palms. His breathing matches Zevran's now, both of them panting in harsh gasps, and oh fucking Andraste, he wants to come so much.

More than that, he wants to touch. He wants to run his fingers through the mess on Zevran's thighs, wants to wrap his hand around the vines and feel them moving, knowing that even as they twist in his grip, they're twisting inside Zevran at the same time. He wants to push his fingers in along with them, feel the shudders wracking Zevran's body from the inside. He wants the impossible, wants to feel all of them sliding around his cock as he fucks Zevran. He wants the groans Zevran is making to be for him.

Two more vines join the ones fucking Zevran, and Alistair closes his eyes, only to open them again almost immediately. The wet sound of the vines sliding in and out, twisting around each other, makes it impossible to think about anything except what they're doing to Zevran.

There are more vines fucking Zevran now, stretching his hole wide enough that Alistair thinks again of fucking him with half a dozen of the vines slick against his cock. He tries to count the vines, unsure why the number matters but also sure that it does. In his imagination, he can hear his own voice, more confident than it ever is in real life, whispering in Zevran's ear, _"I watched a dozen of them fuck you."_

The small, slick vines stop moving just as the larger vines turn Zevran again, tipping him over onto his back, his head hanging unsupported while the vines wrap around his shoulders. Exactly like someone lying across a bed, in fact. Alistair recognizes the position immediately and swallows back an embarrassing whimper.

With his neck stretched out like that, Zevran's voice is strained, but he manages, "Stroke your cock."

It's remarkably imperious for someone hanging suspended from magic vines while being fucked by those same vines. Alistair nearly giggles--mostly from nerves--as he shakes his head. "I can't."

"Can't?"

"I can't," he says again, shaking his head more vehemently. "Please don't ask me to, I'm not...I mean, it's too much, I'll..." He stumbles to a halt, too embarrassed to go on.

Reading Zevran's expression is difficult enough under normal circumstances. When he's hanging upside down and Alistair is so hard he can't think? There's no point in even trying, no matter how much he wants to know what Zevran is thinking.

"That close?" Zevran rasps out at last.

"Yes," Alistair says, looking off to one side.

"Alistair."

Force of habit drags Alistair's head around, and then shock holds him there. Because Zevran is hanging exactly where he was, only now his mouth is open in clear invitation.

Oh, fuck.

The only part of Alistair that wants to decline that invitation is the part of him dreading the embarrassment when he comes too fast. The rest of him has no trouble ignoring that. It's a problem for the future, when there isn't a living, breathing incarnation of his wildest fantasies right here in front of him.

He manages to get up with reasonable grace, but he's only gone two steps before he gets his first good look at Zevran's cock since the vines started fucking him, and he trips over nothing

Slick vines circle Zevran's cock from the base to the head, all of them twisting slowly back and forth. Each one is thinner than the last, until the one circling just under the head is thin as the wire a smith might use to make chainmail. At first glance, Alistair thinks the tendril is merely toying with the head of Zevran's cock, teasing at the slit with little flicks. At a second glance, however, he realizes that the vine is inside the slit, moving in and out exactly like the vines fucking Zevran's ass.

As Alistair watches, tiny beads form along the vine, passing easily through the slit one at a time. Alistair can't help but count them and gauge how deep the vine has gone by the number of beads he's seen disappear into Zevran's cock. The number is both startling and arousing.

Other than the statue itself, this is the first entirely new thing he's seen tonight. Even if he lacks any personal experience, years in a barracks taught him that it was possible, often pleasurable, to fuck someone's ass or mouth. Everything Zevran has shown him up to now has been startling in its intensity but built off things Alistair already knew people did.

This is something else entirely. Fascinated, he watches the vine slide in and out of Zevran's cock, the beads growing a little larger each time. Does it feel good, the same as the vines fucking his ass? Or is this like being beaten, more of the friendly-unfriendly that Zevran likes and Alistair would just as soon avoid? He can't find the words to ask, not with Zevran hanging there like that, mouth open and eyes demanding.

Later. He can ask about it later. Not now, not when all it takes is another two steps and he's close enough to touch Zevran's face, to brush his fingers over Zevran's lips as a vine guides his cock into that waiting mouth.

It's overwhelming, hot and wet and Maker save him, that's Zevran's tongue rubbing over his cock, and Zevran's throat swallowing around the head. It's so much it almost hurts, his body too confused to deal with it.

Vines catch him as his knees buckle, holding him in place without pinning his arms. He fell a little forward before they caught him, and they don't push him back upright, which leaves him with his nose less than a foot away from Zevran's cock. It gives him the perfect angle to watch the beaded vine push in and pull out, Zevran's slit forced to roundness as each bead passes through, returning to its normal shape only to be rounded again by the next bead.

The vines move Alistair's hips for him, sliding his cock in and out of Zevran's mouth much the way the beaded vine is moving in and out of Zevran's cock, and this time, Alistair's body translates the sensations correctly. Fire shoots up his spine, and on the next thrust, he moves with the vines, pushing his cock in deep and groaning as Zevran swallows.

It's all just shy of too much, and he's riding that edge, mouthing prayers the Chantry never taught him, shaking, needing, grasping blindly for something to cling to, only to slip as his hands land on slick skin. Somewhere in the back of his head, he remembers vines fucking Zevran open, and he stretches out deliberately this time, under Zevran's thigh, reaching back until he can press his hand flat to Zevran's ass, the twisted rope of vines moving through the V formed by his fingers.

Zevran swallows around the head of his cock again, and that's all Alistair can take, he's coming and Zevran is swallowing again and again, each swallow a shock that drags another shuddering spasm out of him, until it's too much and he wants it to stop as desperately as he wanted it to go on forever just a moment ago.

He pushes back against the vines, needing to get away for even a second. They release him so suddenly he isn't prepared for it, and he hits the floor hard, grunting as his knee slams into the stone.

Zevran twists free of the vines and lands beside him a good deal more gracefully. "Alistair!" He's breathless, hoarse, but the concern is clear. "Alistair, cariño, are you all right?"

The pain has grounded him a little, enough that he can nod. Small sparks are still jumping through him, but without Zevran's mouth on his cock, they're no longer overwhelming. Each one makes him shiver, and it takes serious effort to pay attention to what Zevran is saying.

"My apologies," Zevran says, still sounding upset. "I meant for them to let you go, not drop you."

"It's fine," Alistair says. Because it is. The pain in his knee is fading, and the sparks of pleasure are smoothing out into a gentle warmth that makes him want to lie down, especially if he can lie down with Zevran.

Who's still apologizing.

Alistair's brain hasn't quite recovered, and it can only come up with one way to make Zevran stop. It turns out to be a good plan, though: Zevran stops mid-word when Alistair takes a loose handful of his hair and pulls him gently forward into a kiss.

Kissing isn't something Alistair has vast experience with, but at least he has a little, enough to not make a complete fool of himself. Once Zevran gets over his surprise, he has more than enough to make up for anything Alistair lacks, plus an unexpected amount of enthusiasm. When Alistair thought about it at all, he'd assumed Zevran would consider kissing to be a waste of time and far too tame. He certainly hadn't expected Zevran to be the sort of person who would climb into his lap at the first hint of an invitation, even if climbing into his lap requires first pushing him over so he has a lap at all.

The vines catch him this time, curving around them like a large chair. Maybe not quite as comfortable as the non-magical one Alistair was sitting in earlier, but he barely registers that. Zevran is straddling his thighs, mouth hungry and skin still slick from the vines, already running his hands over Alistair's chest. His kisses have teeth sometimes, stinging bites to Alistair's lower lip that hurt and feel right at the same time. Is this how Zevran felt when the vines were whipping him? If so, Alistair understands it better, even if he still has no interest in trying that for himself.

Zevran pushes a hand between them without breaking the kiss, and after a confused moment, Alistair realizes why: Zevran is stroking his still-hard cock, jerking himself off with quick strokes.

Alistair pulls back and looks down, mildly horrified with himself. It wasn't like he thought Zevran had already come, but there'd been the falling, and the apologizing, and the kissing, and somewhere in all that, Alistair lost track.

His apology is less coherent than Zevran's, a stammering flood of words his brain can't control, but it ends the same when Zevran kisses him to make him stop. It really is a very good strategy. Alistair will have to remember it for later.

For now, he gathers his scattered wits and pulls away from the kiss to say, "Maybe, um, maybe the...the statue, the vines, whatever it is...maybe it could, um, do what it was doing before and I could, um, lend a hand?"

Zevran's eyes had widened while Alistair talked, but by the end, they're narrowed with pleasure. "Soooo," he says when Alistair stumbles through his very weak joke and stops. "I wish to be sure I understand."

He pauses to kiss Alistair, slow and lingering, before he goes on. "You are suggesting that I sit here and allow our new friend to fuck me while you stroke my cock." He draws out the last word, savoring it.

Alistair's brain is already half gone. Having Zevran pressed against him saying "fuck" and "cock" doesn't do the remaining half any good, and he starts to babble. He's not even sure what he babbles, his mouth going too fast for his brain to keep track, though something makes Zevran's eyebrows shoot up once, briefly.

"Alistair," Zevran says at last, leaning in so close their lips brush. "Cariño. Stop talking."

There's a laugh in his voice that makes it difficult for Alistair to take offense. "Yes, right, sorry, I'll just..." He realizes what he's doing and curls his lips between his teeth, pressing down hard to keep his mouth shut.

That plan doesn't last very long, because Zevran kisses him, tongue caressing his lips until he opens them. At which point Zevran's tongue is thrusting into his mouth, and the last of Alistair's ability to think rationally disappears.

Zevran takes his hand, guiding it between them to press Alistair's fingers into a tight fist around the head of his cock as he kisses his way to Alistair's ear. "There, hold it very still just there."

Confused, Alistair starts to ask how keeping his hand still is going to do anything, then Zevran shudders against him, hips rocking to drive his cock up into Alistair's fist. Which isn't exactly what Alistair had in mind, because Zevran is still doing all the work, but before he can say so, Zevran's whole body moves, his cock sliding through Alistair's hand again, and understanding dawns.

Sure enough, if he looks down the line of Zevran's back he can see half a dozen vines fucking him again. It's not quite as good an angle as before, when the vines were displaying Zevran for him--when Zevran was using the vines to display himself--but then, from this position he also has Zevran's cock thrusting into his fist. On balance, Alistair will consider this a definite improvement.

Especially since Zevran's mouth is right by his ear. Half of what Zevran says is in Antivan, but the words don't really matter. Just the sound of his voice whispering, groaning, is enough to stir Alistair's cock. Combined with the sight of the vines fucking him and the smell of his hair and the taste of his sweat, Alistair can feel himself getting hard again.

Before, some of the vines held Zevran in place while the others fucked him. Now the only things holding him are the weight of his own body and Alistair's arm around his waist, and neither is enough to counter the force of the vines fucking him. Every thrust pushes his cock into Alistair's fist and rubs his ass, slick from the vines, over Alistair's cock. Alistair is short of breath, heart hammering, and he isn't even doing anything. He's just holding on and watching while the vines twist and slide into Zevran, until Zevran's muscles lock and he comes all over Alistair's hand and stomach.

Alistair half expects Zevran to pull away as soon as he's finished, but he's as wrong here as he was about the kissing. When Zevran's muscles unlock, his whole body goes limp, relaxing against Alistair as if he's trying to melt through him, or maybe into him. The only effort Zevran expends is to push his face into the hollow between Alistair's neck and shoulder.

Bemused, Alistair tightens the arm around his waist and surreptitiously wipes off his hand on a convenient vine so he can wrap his other arm around Zevran's shoulders. Zevran hums into the side of his neck and somehow finds a way to become even more limp, leaving Alistair with what he can only think of as a puddle of Antivan. It sparks a different kind of warmth inside him, something tentative he doesn't examine too closely.

He's so focused on Zevran that he doesn't realize he's being moved until he's set down gently in the chair, still with his armful of limp assassin. Startled out of his introspection, he looks up in time to see all of the vines retreating. They twist together into a column that touches the ceiling and begin to turn, spiraling gradually back down into dark grey stone.

Alistair is a little disappointed. He'd hoped...well. He'd hoped for a lot of things, and since the one he's wanted the longest is now half asleep on his chest, he thinks he's doing all right. There's no need to be greedy.


	3. Chapter 3

Alistair is half asleep himself when Zevran says out of nowhere, "Might I ask you a personal question?" His face is still buried in Alistair's neck, but he sounds about ten times more alert than Alistair feels.

"You're not asleep," Alistair says. The words come out like an accusation.

"Asleep?" Zevran makes an offended noise. "Of course not. I was merely gathering my strength."

"For what?" Alistair asks, teasing now. "The long walk back to camp? It'll be awful, those two flights of stairs. I can see why you'd need to conserve your strength, but I'm not carrying you."

Zevran lifts his head so his mouth is right beside Alistair's ear when he murmurs, "I think I could persuade you otherwise."

Privately, Alistair agrees--Zevran could persuade him to do a lot of things--but aloud he says in his most doubtful voice, "You could try."

"Perhaps I will," Zevran says. He nuzzles the hollow behind Alistair's jaw, breath warm, and Alistair is half persuaded already, except Zevran is sitting up even as the thought goes through Alistair's head. "Or perhaps we will save that for later."

Zevran's grin is sly. He's still straddling Alistair's thighs, which puts that grinning mouth less than a foot away, well within easy kissing range.

"Later?" Alistair asks, without looking away from Zevran's mouth.

"Later," Zevran says. "Unless, of course, you would prefer to call our evening's entertainment finished."

That gets Alistair's attention, and he looks up to meet Zevran's eyes. "Isn't it?"

"Only if you wish it to be." Zevran's grin is somewhere between teasing and challenging. "But if I have exhausted you already, by all means, let us return to camp."

"I thought _you_ were done," Alistair says. He waves one hand vaguely in the statue's direction by way of explanation, trying to indicate its current dormant state.

"So soon? Tch. What have I done to you that you insult me like this?" Zevran's grin softens into a smile. "I sent our new friend away for a while, nothing more. I found it distracting, and I wished to concentrate on other things."

"Like taking a nap?"

Zevran's expression turns unexpectedly serious, and he touches the tip of a finger to Alistair's lower lip, tracing the edge of it carefully. His eyes follow the movement more intently than necessary. "No, cariño, a nap was not what I wished to concentrate on."

The implication leaves Alistair breathless, and while he's working on that, Zevran asks, "Why did you not mention sooner that you had never been with anyone before?"

Shit. Shit fuck shit fuck _shit_. "I, um, didn't mean to mention it at all." This is one of many reasons he hates babbling: there's never any telling what will fall out of his mouth. Afraid to ask but unable to help himself, he adds, "Is it a problem?"

"For me?" Zevran asks. "Certainly not. But for you..." He turns his hand palm up and shrugs, as if Alistair is somehow supposed to know what that means.

When he doesn't elaborate, Alistair prompts, "What about me?"

Zevran gives him an odd look. "If I had known this was your first time, I would have done things a bit differently."

"Why?" Alistair asks, frowning in confusion.

For maybe the first time ever, he catches Zevran without a glib answer. It's clearly unexpected for Zevran, too: he opens and closes his mouth several times as if expecting words to miraculously appear.

It take a while, but eventually Alistair stops reveling in the novelty of that and tries a different question. "What would you have done differently?" A horrible thought occurs to him. "Did I...did I do something wrong?"

"No!" It's loud, almost a shout, and they both wince, glancing at the closed door. The mansion is large, and this room is at the far end of one wing, but neither of them wants the rest of the party bursting in, ready for a fight.

"No," Zevran says again, more quietly. Then his grin comes back. "You did nothing wrong, but there are certainly more romantic locations than a darkspawn-infested ruin. Had I known you would say yes, I would have taken advantage of one such location in order to take advantage of _you_ , and done it quite some time ago."

"You know now," Alistair points out helpfully.

"True," Zevran murmurs. "Are you suggesting I take advantage of you again?"

"Well, I'm here," Alistair says, "and you're here, and, um, our new friend is here."

"How fortunate for me." Zevran's eyes are dark again, his smile wicked as he slides the ring off his finger to hold it out to Alistair. "And what do you plan to ask our new friend to do for you?"

Alistair licks his lips nervously and doesn't take the ring. "I...I was hoping you would. Um. Do the asking part. For me."

Zevran exhales sharply, then sits there in silence for a long moment, studying Alistair's face. "I would enjoy that a great deal," he says eventually. "Is there anything in particular I should _not_ ask for?"

"Nothing unfriendly?"

"Friendly only," Zevran says. "I remember." He trails the ring over Alistair's mouth and along his cheek, the metal warm from his skin. "I can promise to do nothing intended to hurt you. Will you promise to tell me if I hurt you despite that?"

Alistair swallows and moves his chin in a jerky nod, unable to speak.

Zevran leans forward and kisses him lightly, breathing, "Perfect," against his mouth.

Before Alistair can try to kiss him again, Zevran climbs out of his lap and takes his hand, pulling him up out of the chair and across the room. The vines are again floating lazily in the air, drifting in a current Alistair can't feel. Aside from their stone-like appearance, they could be some especially tall kind of grass.

One vine separates itself from the others, breaking the illusion, because as many strange things as Alistair has seen, he's yet to see grass do that.

"I thought we might start with an introduction," Zevran says, his smile clearly audible.

"Hello," Alistair says to the vine, as dryly as he can, and holds out a hand like this is all perfectly normal. "Nice to meet you."

Zevran huffs out a soft laugh and sends the vine down to wrap around Alistair's hand. It's almost a handshake, except for the part where the vine continues on, twisting around his wrist and down his forearm in a loose spiral. It's back to the first form it took, crystalline and cool, its glow sparking brighter wherever it touches his skin.

As he's watching it, a second vine brushes against his fingertips. This one has flattened out and turned its edges feathery.

It's also blue. Very blue. Cloudless-summer-sky, almost-luminescent blue.

After a startled blink, Alistair glares at Zevran, who smiles back innocently and asks, "Would you prefer a different color?"

"Does it have to have a color at all?" Alistair complains.

"Close your eyes, and you will never know the difference." When Alistair gives him a suspicious look, he spreads his hands wide. "Have faith, cariño. I promise it will be rewarded."

"But then I can't see you," Alistair says. Only after the words are out does he realize how silly they are. If the vines are moving, then Zevran has to be in the room, so why does it matter whether Alistair can see him?

Zevran doesn't laugh, just steps close enough for a kiss. Not the soft, sweet kiss Alistair is half expecting, either. It's wet and filthy, Zevran's tongue in his mouth and hands on his ass while another vine curls around his calf and begins to make its way up his leg. Alistair is gasping for breath by the time Zevran pulls away, but he's still not ready for the kiss to end.

Maybe Zevran isn't either, or maybe he's willing to be persuaded: all Alistair has to do is wrap a hand around the back of his neck to hold him in place for another kiss. It's just as filthy as the last one, Zevran's mouth hot on his, only this time Zevran's hands are on his shoulders rather than his ass.

The reason becomes clear very quickly as Zevran jumps up to wrap both legs around his waist. Alistair grabs for his ass on instinct, mostly concerned with catching him, but the vines already have most of his weight. They leave just enough for Alistair to feel like he's holding Zevran up, but not so much that the position will be difficult to maintain.

One of Zevran's hands is on the back of his head now, the other arm wrapped tight around his shoulders. Their cocks rub together every time Zevran rolls his hips, which is often, and Alistair would worry about falling over if he could think about anything at all. As it is, the whole world is Zevran, his mouth and his hands and his cock.

And his ass, slick under Alistair's hands. Whatever it was that made some of the vines slippery, it's all over Zevran's ass and thighs, tangible reminder of the vines fucking him. Alistair takes advantage of the vines now, of the way they support most of Zevran's weight, to let his fingers slide down between the cheeks of Zevran's ass, just short of his hole.

He hesitates there, painfully conscious of how little experience he has, until Zevran grinds down against his hands and hums encouragement against his mouth.

Two fingers slide in easily, and when Alistair thrusts experimentally, Zevran groans, arms and legs tightening. Flicking his fingers over the rim gets almost as good a reaction, and three fingers at once has Zevran's back arching.

Something--one of the vines--pushes Alistair's hands away, letting Zevran put his feet down and step back. This time when Alistair tries for another kiss, Zevran smiles but shakes his head. "I would hate to forget all the lovely plans I have for you."

"We could make new plans," Alistair says.

"We could," Zevran allows, "but I believe my original plan will be to your liking. If you will close your eyes for me, I promise to be sure that you always know I am here."

Arguing is an option, especially since Alistair is beginning to suspect that Zevran is as susceptible to him as he is to Zevran, but he's curious. Zevran is the one with all the experience, after all, so Alistair drops his hand back to his side, closes his eyes, and prepares to wait.

Zevran doesn't make him wait very long. A vine twists around his arm again, lifting his hand and turning it palm up so that another can brush over the fingertips and palm. By the feel, it's the feathery vine from earlier. Alistair wonders if it's still blue, and the thought makes him smile.

"Ah," Zevran says. "Good. I am so very fond of your smile."

The feathery vine brushes Alistair's lips, startling but not unpleasant. It feels nothing like fingers, but at the same time, it feels like Zevran is touching his mouth, lightly tracing the edge and then stroking directly across both lips.

"Do you know," Zevran says, "the first time I saw you, I thought, 'There is a mouth I would like to kiss.'"

Alistair tilts his head away from the vine enough to say, "The first time you saw me, you were trying to kill me."

The vine flicks over his ear, deliberately tickling, and Alistair swats at it, laughing.

"And it made me sad to think I should deprive the world of someone so handsome," Zevran says. "How fortunate that other options presented themselves."

About to make a sarcastic reply, Alistair forgets the words as the vine touches his lower lip again, stroking the inner edge. He opens his mouth a little wider, and the vine slips in, between his teeth and over his tongue. It's not feathery anymore; now it's solid, heavy on his tongue, applying just enough pressure that swallowing is the tiniest bit difficult.

A second vine slips into his mouth alongside the first. Neither one is large, but together they stretch his lips as they rub over his tongue and the insides of his cheeks, twisting around each other constantly. He sucks tentatively, then does it again when Zevran hums in appreciation.

One of the vines withdraws as the other swells, filling his mouth by itself. Its texture changes at the same time, the surface yielding slightly to the pressure of his tongue while the center remains firm. Most of his attention is on the stretch in his jaw and the occasional pleased noises Zevran makes, until the tip of the vine changes shape, constricting in a ring about an inch from the end so that it flares briefly before the curved tip. Alistair's face flushes as he realizes what shape it's mimicking.

"I will admit," Zevran says, and his voice is closer than it was, "that it took me some weeks to consider what your mouth might look like were it wrapped around my cock. A shocking oversight on my part, I know."

His fingers graze Alistair's cheek and lips, tracing around the vine as it begins thrusting steadily in and out of Alistair's mouth. The vine never goes deep enough to choke him or cut off his air, but he still can barely breathe. Zevran's fingers feel as though they're burning him, or maybe freezing, Alistair's skin tingling like sensation is returning after too long in the cold.

"Of course, having thought of it once," Zevran says, "I will also admit that I may have given it more than an occasional thought since then." He kisses the side of Alistair's neck, and when he goes on, his lips brush the skin with each word. "Would it upset you to know that there were times I stroked myself to that thought?"

Alistair is glad the vine fucking his mouth saves him from answering, but the way his face flushes brighter is probably telling more than he wants to reveal. If by some miracle it isn't, then the small noise that escapes despite his best efforts almost certainly gives him away.

Zevran laughs, low and quiet and delighted, as the vine slides out of Alistair's mouth. "So perhaps I was not the only one to think such things?"

There's a moment where Alistair considers lying, or at least pretending he didn't hear the question, but he's not a coward. If Zevran can admit to his fantasies, then Alistair can do the same.

"I would...I would think about touching you." He swallows. "I wanted to touch you. Want to."

"Do you now?" Zevran cups his cheek, his palm warm. "And how long have you been wanting it?"

"Too long."

"Longer than just tonight, then?"

Alistair doesn't need experience with sex to recognize someone fishing for a compliment. He smiles into Zevran's palm. "You really need me to say it?"

"Need?" Zevran asks. "No, of course not. But want? That would be something else entirely, especially when I have already made my own confession."

"Confession," Alistair repeats, amused. "I don't think it counts as a confession if you're not sorry."

"Oh, well, in that case," Zevran says, "it was in no way a confession, because I am in no way sorry. And you are not answering my question."

Alistair's face heats again, just a little, and he shrugs one shoulder. "A long time? I don't know when it started, it just kind of snuck up on me."

"We assassins are masters at sneaking."

"I've noticed," Alistair says. He's pretty sure his sarcasm lacks sting, but oh well.

"And yet you failed to notice the exact moment when you were struck by my beauty and wit?" Zevran is teasing again, no sign of concern or anxiety in his voice.

Maker knows he doesn't need anything that would make him even more self-confident, but Alistair gives him a serious--or at least, mostly serious--answer anyway. "Not really. I just woke up one morning from a dream about you and realized I'd been dreaming about you a lot. Thinking about you a lot."

"A dream," Zevran says. "What naughty things were we doing in this dream?"

Alistair's face burns hotter. "Just...ummm...just kissing." He would be less embarrassed if it had been something naughty. He forces a laugh. "Not very interesting, I guess."

"I disagree," Zevran says, kissing him as if to prove it. "Do you find it so dull to kiss me?"

Alistair snorts his opinion of that. "Pretty much the opposite, but it's got to be kind of boring for you."

"Very much the opposite," Zevran says. "I would think that quite obvious by now."

"But you've, um, done a lot of different..." Alistair trails off, unable to think of a word that encompasses everything, and finally settles on, "...stuff."

"I have," Zevran agrees easily, "and while I enjoyed much of that 'stuff,' I find overall that my enjoyment is less about the novelty of the act and more about the enthusiasm of my partner. Or partners."

Alistair's brain tries to go in two directions at once, part of him caught on "partners" and part of him trying to weigh Zevran's sincerity. It's not easy to decide if Zevran is being honest while Alistair is also being subjected to a parade of images fueled almost entirely by the pictures he looked at tonight.

"I thought you did know that I, um, that I wanted you," he says at last. "That you were just being nice, not mentioning it."

"And here you are, insulting me once again." Zevran sighs, mock sadly. "Calling me such a thing as _nice._ "

Alistair chooses to ignore that. "You had to know. You're good with, with people, and flirting."

"And yet, reading minds is still beyond me." Zevran sounds like he's holding back a laugh, but at least he is holding it back.

"You really didn't know?" Alistair demands, not quite believing.

"I did not," Zevran says. He kisses Alistair lightly. "Plain enough to see that you were never at ease with me, but the why of it? That was less clear."

"You had to have guesses, though."

"I had _hopes_ , let us say." Zevran kisses him again, staying close to nuzzle at his cheek as he adds, "But I could never be sure whether those hopes made me see more than was there."

Alistair shakes his head and whispers, "It was there." He turns his face to catch Zevran's mouth in a kiss, hit suddenly by the thrill of being allowed to do it. It gives him the courage to say, "I just...I thought you knew, and if you weren't saying anything, then that was a no, and I didn't need to embarrass both of us by making you say it."

"What fools we are," Zevran says, too cheerful for the words. His fingers stroke down Alistair's neck and along his collarbone. "So many months wasted, so many opportunities missed."

His hand keeps going, down the center of Alistair's chest at a rate too slow to be anything except a deliberate tease. "Though all those months allowed me ample time to consider what I might do to you, should the opportunity present itself."

Not all of Alistair's dreams had been about kissing, though with no experience to draw from, they had been mostly limited to jerking each other off, mixed with the occasional hazy, disjointed fantasy of sucking Zevran's cock, of Zevran sucking his.

"When you asked me to tell our new friend what to do to you," Zevran says, his hand now making its slow way down Alistair's stomach, "I considered telling you a few of my ideas in great and glorious detail."

His hand stops just shy of Alistair's cock and strokes back up instead of continuing down. "But on the whole, I think I would rather show you."

He sounds so smug, Alistair can't help but shiver in anticipation.


	4. Chapter 4

Vines curl up Alistair's legs and around his arms as another begins to fuck his mouth again. They feel like hands and fingers and occasionally mouths, sliding over every inch of his body. One touches his ear, but unlike the feathery caress from before, this one is firm enough not to tickle. It traces the curve of his ear down to the hinge of his jaw, and he shivers.

He shivers again as he realizes the touch on his ear is the one that's actually Zevran, and the "hand" stroking down his stomach is a vine. Up until that moment, he'd thought it would be easy to tell Zevran's hand from a magical vine. The knowledge that it isn't, that with his eyes closed he can't be completely sure who or what is touching him, makes him gasp around the vine fucking his mouth.

Every vine becomes an extension of Zevran, and every place they touch him, it's Zevran touching him: Zevran's hands gripping his arms, Zevran's fingers stroking his ear and the underside of his jaw, Zevran's arms around his shoulders. Zevran's cock sliding in and out of his mouth, and Zevran's mouth kissing up the length of his cock. The shift in perception leaves him disoriented, his mind trying to bend around it and only half succeeding.

Possibly because most of him doesn't care. Almost every sensation is new, and even the ones he's experienced before feel different when it's not his hands creating them. Stroking his own cock is not at all the same as Zevran doing it, whether with a hand or a vine, and the stretch at the corners of his mouth is entirely new.

Alistair's jaw is aching by the time the vine pulls out of his mouth again, but he stretches his neck after it anyway.

"In a moment," Zevran murmurs, and this time, Alistair knows it isn't a vine pressing against his mouth. Zevran's lips are cool, his tongue hot, and something curls around the back of Alistair's head to hold him in place while Zevran's tongue fucks his mouth nearly as thoroughly as the vine did. The vine didn't breathe, though, didn't gasp for air and bite at his lower lip, and Alistair whimpers, too hot despite the fact that the vines are still cooler than his skin.

The vines around his arms and legs tighten, lifting him into the air so carefully he doesn't even realize they're doing it until they lift him too far to keep kissing Zevran. He would protest, except that's definitely Zevran's mouth on his cock, tongue exploring the head as a vine spirals up the shaft to meet his lips. The vine is covered in soft ridges now, and as it twists, those ridges rub over Alistair's cock in time to the strokes of Zevran's tongue. Other vines wrap around his thighs, spreading his legs gently apart.

Gently, but also relentlessly, and the vines use the same inexorable pressure to bend his arms behind his back. The position stretches his shoulders without hurting them, pushing his chest out for the vines to tease at his nipples, one of the vines tugging gently. It’s a strange sensation, not entirely pleasant, and his attempts to twist away get him exactly nothing.

"Zev..." It's the best he can do. His mouth and tongue feel thick, unused to forming words.

The pressure on his nipples disappears at the same time the vines around his arms relax, leaving his hands free. "Not that, then?" Zevran asks. His hand cups Alistair's cheek, thumb stroking over his cheekbone. "All right, cariño?"

Alistair nods, but he rubs his palms roughly over his chest anyway. "I'm fine. It just...it felt weird." His eyes move behind closed eyelids, and he remembers just in time that he's not supposed to open them. "Different weird than the rest, I guess."

"Well, I shall endeavor to avoid that particular type of 'weird' then."

Zevran kisses him, which is the first Alistair realizes that he's back on the ground. The kiss is nice--more than nice--except that it means Zevran has changed whatever he'd planned to do that involved Alistair dangling in the air.

"Um," Alistair mumbles into the kiss, struggling to find the right words. "The, the rest was good, though."

"Good weird?" Zevran asks lightly.

"Yeah. You, um, you didn't have to stop."

Zevran laughs in delight, and Alistair's skin flushes with want rather than embarrassment. The vines are already lifting him again, pulling his arms out to the sides this time, rather than behind his back, until he's spread-eagled in the air. The stretch pulls at the muscles in his legs and arms, enough to feel it without straining them.

"So beautiful," Zevran says. Something touches the hollow at the top of Alistair's thigh, stroking the curve without touching his cock. It's warm, the right size to be Zevran's finger, but even as Alistair thinks that, a dozen more begin to move over his skin. They touch the insides of his wrists and elbows, comb through his hair, stroke the outside of his ear.

One traces his lips, and Alistair opens his mouth for it eagerly. It's much smaller than the one that fucked his mouth before, and he thinks again of fingers, of Zevran's fingers, of the way Zevran has somehow managed to turn every vine into an extension of himself.

Another vine joins the one in his mouth, the two of them moving in unison, sometimes sliding over his tongue and sometimes wrapping around it. He barely notices when more join in, only aware of the way they force his mouth open wider, the way his lips have to stretch to make room. He's gasping for air around them, as breathless as he was earlier when Zevran was kissing him.

The vines rearrange him, pulling his arms over his head and his legs up against his chest, and the one that's been stroking the hollow of his groin slides up to press on the skin behind his balls. Alistair notices that it's leaving something slick on his skin about half a breath before he realizes where it's going and why the vines have pushed his knees almost to his chin. He tenses without meaning to, anxious and curious in equal measure, his attention now focused entirely on that one vine. As much as he was enjoying the others fucking his mouth, now he can't think about anything except the one stroking over his hole.

Its touch is light, barely on the right side of tickling, and Alistair squirms as much as the vines holding him will allow. Anxiety and anticipation both build higher as the vine rubs back and forth, teasing him with the possibility that this time it might fuck him, only to tease a little more instead.

The vines in his mouth withdraw, and he doesn't need to hear the question Zevran is about to ask, he knows what it will be, and he gasps out, "Yes!" without waiting for Zevran to ask. "Please!

He expects to have to ask again, maybe even for Zevran to tease him a while longer, so he's already drawing a breath when the vine finds his hole and presses slowly in. With his mouth already open, his groan is embarrassingly loud. Another expectation proven wrong: he'd thought it would hurt, at least a little, but the vine is thin enough--and slick enough--that it doesn't hurt at all.

It's not so thin he can't feel it, though, and it feels good, the kind of good that promises to be a lot more if it keeps going. There's just enough texture to the vine's surface that he can feel it moving in and out, fucking him in leisurely thrusts. Another pushes at his lips again, and he opens his mouth to let it back in. It thickens as soon as it passes his lips, filling his mouth by itself, and he groans around it, wanting as much as Zevran will let him have.

The vine fucking him pulls out only so it can thrust back in, faster than before, and the vines pinning his ankles to his thighs shift enough to let one of their number slide around his leg. As it moves, it changes, thinning out and turning slick. Impossible to mistake where it's going, even if it is going there so slowly Alistair might go crazy before it gets there. With his earlier anxiety gone, all that's left is anticipation edging into desperation. He wants it, wants to feel it moving inside him along with the other vine, and he whines around the one in his mouth.

"Soon," Zevran says. "But allow me to enjoy this a moment longer. I wish to remember every detail later."

If his mouth wasn't being fucked, Alistair would point out that the next time Zevran wants to see this, they can do it again, and could Zevran please fuck him before he dies. His mouth _is_ full, however, and while he could twist away from that vine, he doesn't actually want it to stop. He wants more, not less.

And Zevran gives him more, even if he does seem to delight in making Alistair wait for it every time. The vine around his leg eventually slides in alongside the other, the two twisting around each other for several thrusts as Alistair's back tries to bow, arms and legs straining against the vines. Another is already winding from his wrist to his shoulder and down his spine, taking three times as long to make it from the small of his back to his ass as it took to travel the entire length of his arm.

The vine fucking his mouth swells a little larger and begins to thrust harder. Combined with the vines coiling inside him, and the one just starting to push into him, it drags another moan out of him. He tries to move counter to the one in his mouth, to make its thrusts that much harder, but he's held too tightly for it to work. He tries anyway, wanting to feel it fill his mouth the way it did before, vaguely aware that he's making small, whimpering groans but not caring enough to stop.

Zevran hums thoughtfully then murmurs, "Would you suck my cock with such eagerness?"

It jolts Alistair back to himself a little, enough for the worrying to start back up even as he groans around the vine in his mouth. He knows exactly nothing about sucking anyone's cock, and wanting it doesn't make him less ignorant.

"Shall we find out?" Zevran asks, and Alistair nods despite his apprehension.

The vines twist his arms around to the small of his back and pull his legs away from his chest with his knees still bent, lowering him to kneel on the floor. The change in position makes him intensely aware of the vines still filling his ass; they're not thrusting anymore, but with his legs together, they feel larger than they did a moment ago.

More vines cradle his head, tilting it to the right angle and then holding it in place as another pair of vines slip into his mouth to open it. He feels awkward, maybe even a little silly, then Zevran's cock slides between his lips and silly is the last thing he feels.

After the first stunned moments when all he can think is, _He's...I'm...his cock...oh holy Maker_ , his brain tries to take in every detail and memorize all of them all at once. Is this how Zevran felt earlier? It doesn't matter that he'll have the chance to do this again. All that matters is now, the taste and the feel of Zevran's cock in his mouth.

It's not quite the same as the vines, even the vine that was so clearly imitating a cock. Zevran's skin is a little salty, where the vine had no taste at all, and where the vine was perfectly straight, Zevran's cock curves slightly to one side. And that's leaving aside Zevran's sheer presence, the heat of his body and all the little sounds Alistair wouldn't be able to hear from more than a few feet away. Small sighs, low hums, the occasional murmured Antivan, words Alistair doesn't know even as the tone makes his cock ache.

Zevran doesn't fuck his mouth the way the vine did, but Alistair doesn't mind. The slow thrusts and long pauses give him a chance to explore, even if his eyes are closed and his hands tied behind his back. He can press the flat of his tongue against the underside of the shaft to feel the skin move, and he can run the tip of his tongue over the head to learn each crease and curve. That Zevran makes approving noises every time is just added encouragement.

Alistair has almost forgotten about the vines in his ass by the time they begin to move again. The constant, steady pressure had slipped from his notice as he got caught up in studying Zevran's cock. Now the pressure is anything but steady as the vines shift, even if they're not thrusting the way they did before. They're coiling inside him, a warm weight that twists and turns and-

The mass of vines shifts to a new position, and something about it sends electricity arcing all the way to Alistair's fingertips. He gasps around Zevran's cock, then gasps again as the vines twist, sending another jolt through him.

"Ha," Zevran breathes. "There, yes?"

Alistair couldn't give him an answer even without a cock in his mouth, but Zevran isn't waiting for one anyway. He makes the vines curl around again, and this time Alistair whimpers as a third burst of electricity flashes through his entire body. It's sharp, almost painful, and he's torn between wanting more and wanting it to stop before he loses complete control.

"More?" Zevran traces the underside of Alistair's jaw, with his fingers or with one of the thinner vines. "Or shall I try something else?"

His cock slips from Alistair's mouth, leaving a wet smear on Alistair's chin. The vines keep Alistair from chasing after it, but he strains forward anyway.

"So you _would_ suck my cock just as eagerly," Zevran says. He sounds pleased, but also faintly surprised. "And to think I could have discovered that months ago. I might have had the pleasure of watching you do this many, many times."

Alistair doesn't know what to say to that, and while he's thinking, Zevran makes the vines in his ass twist again. His skin twitches like he was hit with actual electricity, instead of that strange, too-intense pleasure.

"It's too much," Alistair blurts out. "I mean, it's good, but...it's also not?" Then, when the vines ease off, he adds a mumbled, "Sorry."

Zevran doesn't laugh, thank the Maker. He cups Alistair's cheek instead, thumb brushing lips that are still warm and tingling. "Thank you for telling me. It would upset me greatly to learn later that I had done something to hurt you."

"It didn't _hurt_ ," Alistair says. "It just..." He flails, unable to explain. "It didn't hurt, it was just too much."

"Something less than pleasant, then," Zevran says. "It would upset me to know I had done something to you that was less than pleasant."

Unable to think of an answer he's willing to say out loud, Alistair ducks his chin instead, catching Zevran's thumb between his teeth. He holds it lightly and sucks on the tip, tasting traces of salt and something faintly bitter. It takes him a moment to recognize the taste, and then his face heats. He's tasted his own come once or twice, more out of curiosity than anything, and Zevran's doesn't taste that different.

He thinks about trying for Zevran's fingers, to find out if they taste the same, but Zevran is already taking his thumb back. Slowly, as if he's reluctant to do it, and Alistair considers holding on, to see what happens.

"May I try one thing?" Zevran asks, interrupting his thoughts. "Something similar, but not quite the same. If it's not to your liking, I promise there are many other things to try."

Alistair hesitates, thinking both of that electric pleasure-pain and of how careful Zevran has been of every boundary he's set. After a moment's hesitation, he nods.

The vines in his ass begin to move again, another few inches sliding in, but rather than fucking him deeper, they twist into a knot that grows thicker and thicker. A softer, more diffuse echo of those previous shocks goes through him, and without the overwhelming intensity, the sensation goes straight to his cock.

"More," he whispers.

"Siempre." Zevran's voice is hoarse, barely louder than Alistair's whisper.

Alistair doesn't know any Antivan, but the knot of vines is thickening, and he understands that just fine. The vines are heavy inside him, a growing pressure that's finally moving deeper, filling him up as they fuck him painfully slow.

"More," he says again, begging now, shaking with the need for it. "Please!"

Another vine slides between his legs and touches his hole, circling around the other vines before it pushes in. It stretches him open a little more and coils inside him with the others, building the pressure higher. Most of the vines are thrusting and twisting together, pulling a little ways out to push back in even deeper, while one slim vine wraps around his balls, tugging them gently away from his body.

It doesn't hurt, so it can't hold his attention for long. The vines fucking him are far more interesting: they're thick enough now that even the slightest movement makes him shudder. He's distantly aware that his mouth is moving, begging _more more more moremoremore_ , but it doesn't matter, he can't be embarrassed right now. His skin is too tight, sweat trickling between the vines, and it's all too much, only this time it's the right kind of too much, and he's coming, back bowed and mouth open.

He's disoriented when it's over, no longer sure which way is up, not even entirely sure what happened. The only thing he knows for sure is that he's hanging in the air again, the vines no longer fucking him. He's not even sure he came: he thought he did, but as good as it felt, he isn't satisfied, and his cock is still hard. Under the lassitude currently drifting warm through his body, tension is already gathering, a restless need for more, soon, until he comes as many times as it takes to ease the ache in his cock.

Zevran kisses him, lips parted, breath quick and warm. Alistair is happy to kiss him back, and it's more than the need for release that has him leaning in eagerly. He's as hungry to have Zevran close as he is to come, and for the first time, he wants the vines to let go of him, so he can have Zevran's skin under his hands.

"I want..." Alistair starts but trails off as Zevran licks into his mouth. By the time Zevran is kissing along his jaw, Alistair has forgotten he'd planned to say anything.

So when Zevran murmurs, "You want...?" in his ear, it takes a long breath before Alistair can dredge an answer out of his brain, and another before he can make his mouth work.

"I want to touch you."

"Are you not already?" Zevran asks, teasing, but even as he says it, the vines slip off Alistair's wrists, and when Alistair's hands stroke up his back, he makes a low, pleased sound right in Alistair's ear. "Though who am I to argue with such a lovely idea?"

Zevran's hair is tickling at his nose, so Alistair buries his face in it, breathing in the smell of sweat and leather and Zevran. "Wanted to touch you," he mumbles into the hollow behind Zevran's ear. "Been wanting to touch you."

"I remember." An echo of his earlier delighted surprise warms his voice. "I remember it very well." He nips Alistair's earlobe, a sharp burst of pleasure where Alistair would have expected pain. "Tell me what other wishes I might grant you. What else have you been wanting?"

It's impossible not to be lured in by the words and the purr in his voice, especially when Alistair is already drunk on everything that's happened tonight. Words he might never otherwise have had the nerve to say tumble out in a tangled mess. "When you were, um, I mean, earlier, you were, you made the vines, they were, um, they were...fucking your c-cock."

With Zevran's mouth against his ear, Alistair can actually hear his lips part in surprise. Before Alistair has time to be embarrassed or try to take the words back, Zevran says, voice husky, "And is that something you want?"

Alistair nods, pushing his face deeper into Zevran's hair to hide his blush. Zevran's surprise, his tone, all of it says this isn't something most people would ask for. "Does it hurt?"

"For some, yes," Zevran says. "Others enjoy it quite a lot."

"You like it."

"Very much."

"Does it hurt _you_?" Because as much as Alistair's head is spinning, he's already very clear on the fact that Zevran likes pain. And Alistair is willing to try a lot of things, but pain isn't one of them.

"Not...exactly," Zevran says. As if realizing how reassuring that isn't, he adds apologetically, "It is a difficult feeling to describe."

"But we could try it?" Alistair breathes in the smell of Zevran's hair and makes himself amend that. "I want to try it."

Vines snake around his torso and thighs, squeezing tighter than they have been, tight enough that breathing is a tiny bit more difficult.

"Hold still for me, cariño." Zevran's hand is low on his stomach and very warm. "But tell me if I should stop."

Alistair nods as anticipation and anxiety coil together in his stomach again. Just like when the vine was teasing at his ass, not yet fucking him, all he can do is wait and guess what it might feel like. Will it hurt? Will he hate it? Or--almost worse--will it be a complete disappointment, no more arousing than scratching his ear?

Vines curl around his cock, and that alone is enough to make him grateful for the restraints holding him still. The anxiety isn't enough to soften his cock, and without the distraction of talking, he's on edge with the need to come. Whatever Zevran did to him before, however good it felt at the time, it's done nothing but make him more desperate now.

Something touches the head of his cock, stroking around the flared edge and over the tip without touching the slit. It's too thin to be anything except a vine, and it's slick, exactly like the ones that fucked him before. The end is rounded rather than sharp, which at least relieves a little of Alistair's anxiety, and the anticipation winds itself tighter.

Zevran doesn't tease him very long this time. The vine circles the head of his cock a few times, then teases at the slit for only a breath before sliding in, and oh.

_Oh._

The vine slides in easily, so slick it meets no resistance, and now he understands Zevran's non-explanation: it hurts and it doesn't, a burning pressure that feels both like and unlike a hand stroking his cock. He could no more describe it than Zevran could, but that doesn't stop his mouth from falling open on a gasp that's half shock and half pleasure.

"Yes, or no?" Zevran asks in his ear.

Alistair whimpers, caught in the wash of sensation rushing through his whole body, aware of Zevran's voice but unable to turn the sound into meaning.

The vine withdraws, slipping out as easily as it went in, and Alistair whines a protest.

"Yes or no, cariño? For this, I need a word, though it need not be more than the one."

Without the vine down his cock, Alistair can think enough to understand Zevran's words and gather up a few of his own. Including one very important word.

"Yes!" It comes out on a gasp, barely intelligible even to Alistair, and he adds in a rush, in case Zevran misunderstood, "More, please more, please more, please please _please_!"

Zevran's hand on his stomach twitches, fingers digging in briefly before relaxing. "You beg so prettily," he murmurs. "Perhaps I should make you beg even more."

The image is strangely compelling, and yet, not at all what Alistair wants right now.

"But you also look so very pretty when I fuck you," Zevran says, "so...another time."

Alistair barely hears the last part, because the thin vine is already touching the head of his cock again, the vine's tip making tiny circles just inside the slit. It's marginally less shocking when it slips in, but it's still overwhelming, burning all the way down.

The vine goes deeper this time, and Alistair moans as the burn spreads. It slides in further than Alistair would have thought possible, and when it stops, the vines around his cock squeeze gently. He's hot all over, sweating and shaking, and Zevran's hand rubbing circles on his stomach is the opposite of soothing, especially when Zevran is breathing fast, right in his ear. Another vine curls around his balls, pulling them gently away from his body again, just as yet another pushes into his ass and begins to fuck him.

He comes, and the only reason he doesn't scream is because he doesn't have enough control of his body to inhale, but when it lets go of him at last, his cock is still hard.

Zevran lets him catch his breath, then makes him come again, and again, and again. The vine in his cock is sometimes thick and sometimes thin, and Alistair doesn't honestly know whether he prefers the fullness of it when it's thick, or how far inside him it can go when it's thin. Which is equally true for the vines fucking his ass: sometimes they stretch him wide open, and sometimes they push so deep he wonders dazedly if they're making his stomach bulge, if Zevran can feel them through his skin. He doesn't open his eyes to check. He's mostly forgotten he even could.

Sometimes Zevran builds the pleasure so gradually that Alistair thinks it will never be enough to make him come, and sometimes he drags Alistair up and over the edge so fast it's done before Alistair was quite recovered from the last time. In between, he kisses Alistair as if he wants to make sure Alistair can never get a full breath, strokes his face and his stomach and his thighs, wherever he can reach that isn't covered in vines.

Alistair has no idea how many times Zevran has made him come without letting him _come_ when he finally can't take it anymore. His voice is wrecked but he manages a hoarse, "Please."

The vines inside him withdraw, and he feels empty, but it's also a relief to be able to think again, even if his thoughts are thoroughly scattered.

Zevran kisses him gently. "Please what, cariño?"

"Please let me come for real," he whispers.

"Shall I do it just like this?" Zevran asks, and Alistair is gratified to hear that his voice is rough, too. "Fuck your cock and your ass and perhaps even your mouth until you come?"

Alistair's ass clenches around nothing, and he wants that, but... "Can I fuck you? While you fuck me."

Zevran huffs a soft, breathless "ha!" against his mouth. "I believe that can be arranged, yes."

Alistair has only the vaguest idea which way is up; the vines have him wrapped so securely he can't even tell based on where his body rests against them most heavily. So he doesn't know if Zevran ends up on top of him or under him or beside him, just that they're chest-to-chest, his arms around Zevran and Zevran's arms around him and the vines tight around both of them. More vines spread Zevran's legs and wrap them around Alistair's waist, rearranging their bodies until the head of Alistair's cock is pushing in to Zevran's hole.

Objectively, Zevran's ass around his cock doesn't feel all that different from the vines, but Alistair can't be objective about it when Zevran is groaning into a rough, messy kiss. Faint tremors run through Zevran, so faint Alistair can only feel them because the vines have the two of them pressed together, and Zevran's heart is racing against Alistair's hand where it's splayed across his back.

A vine slides between the cheeks of Alistair's ass. It's thicker than many of the others, but he's been fucked so many times tonight that it pushes into him easily, as do the thinner ones that follow. They weave themselves together into a knot that tugs against his hole from the inside, pulling like they're trying to pull out even though the mass of them together is too big.

Something moves against Alistair's stomach, and after a moment, he realizes it's another vine, this one curling around Zevran's cock. As it twists around, Zevran groans again, his tongue shoving into Alistair's mouth and his ass squeezing tight around Alistair's cock. He's clinging to Alistair as if the vines aren't all around them, and every thrust of his tongue is accompanied by a small, needy sound deep in his throat.

More vines circle the base of Alistair's cock and begin to spiral up it, pushing into Zevran with him. The marks Zevran's fingers are leaving in Alistair's back match with the ones his teeth are leaving in Alistair's lower lip, but the ache doesn't even register. If Zevran is leaving marks, then he's here, pressed against Alistair as tightly as possible, and that's all Alistair cares about.

They're barely moving now, the vines pinning them in place and fucking them at the same time. The ones fucking Alistair feel thicker than ever, the intertwined strands growing and pushing against that spot Zevran has already teased so often tonight. Heat is gathering in his stomach, his balls tightening as the vines around his cock twist in a way that makes Zevran moan. One of them has grown noticeably thicker and is twisting back and forth, and Alistair wonders if Zevran is doing the same thing to himself that he's doing to Alistair.

That thicker vine goes very still as the other one curves around the head of Alistair's cock. He doesn't even suspect what's going to happen until Zevran has already done it, thinning the vine and sending it down inside Alistair's cock. It slides deep, as deep as any of them have gone and then deeper, all the way down until it brushes against something that feels very much like the spot that the vines fucking his ass keep rubbing against. He's breathless, overwhelmed, then all of the vines inside him move together, and he cries out, unable to stop the sound as he comes so hard his whole body shakes with it, as it burns him up and rips him apart and doesn't _stop_.

When it finally lets go of him, lights are flashing behind his closed eyelids, bright bursts that echo the gradually-diminishing bursts of pleasure that continue to jolt him. He's twitching with each aftershock, barely conscious of anything, but he searches blindly until he can press uncoordinated kisses to Zevran's mouth. The vine around Zevran's cock is writhing and twisting frantically, and Zevran is panting, leaning in to the kisses without returning them.

"Want you t' come," Alistair mumbles between kisses. "Want t' feel it."

Zevran sucks in a sharp breath and goes rigid, come spilling between them in a hot rush. Alistair is still too out of it to do anything except kiss him and make pleased noises, but since the first thing Zevran does after he starts breathing again is kiss him back, fiercely, Alistair decides he can't have done too badly.

After the first one, the kisses soften into slow, lazy brushes of Zevran's mouth against his, interspersed with the occasional contented hum. Alistair drifts, half asleep, and returns both kisses and humming in kind. The vines have relaxed enough that he can move his hands, and he trails his fingers along Zevran's spine, doing nothing except appreciating the warmth of his skin.

"All right, cariño," Zevran says, about three decades before Alistair is interested in moving. "We should return to camp before the others discover us in such a compromising position."

He's right, and he sounds honestly regretful. Alistair pushes his face into the hollow of his shoulder and ignores him.

Zevran cups the back of his head and rubs his scalp. "If we fall asleep like this, neither of us will be happy when we wake."

Also true. Also not a compelling enough reason for Alistair to stop nuzzling his throat.

Zevran gives him a little more time before he says gently, "I would love nothing better than to stay here with you, like this, but the others will begin to worry, if they have not already."

Embarrassment and discomfort were acceptable risks, but that...

Alistair sighs and eases back from Zevran, though he allows himself a somewhat petulant, "I want to stay here."

"Such is the way of the world," Zevran says, half teasing and half sympathetic.

The vines shift, moving Alistair away before setting him on his feet. The sudden return of such strange concepts as "up" and "down" after so long without them is disorienting enough that Alistair abandons the argument in favor of not falling on his face. About the time he stubs his toe on something, he remembers the other thing he hasn't needed in what feels like days: sight.

He opens his eyes, squinting against the light at the chair in front of him, which is probably responsible for his stubbed toe. Kicking it seems ill-advised, so he turns around instead. Zevran is standing beside the vines, watching them spin back down into stone with a studied care that makes Alistair instantly wary.

Unsure what else to say, he tries a joke. "We should keep that thing around just for cleanup." His skin is completely clean, even Zevran's come gone.

Zevran slants a look at him from the corner of one eye. "Should we now?"

"Too bad it's so big," Alistair says, wariness growing with every moment that passes. He laughs nervously. "It wouldn't really fit in my pack."

"Mm, it might," Zevran says. He's looking at the statue, which is once again lifeless and still, no sign of what hides inside it.

About to point out that there's no way short of a miracle he would be able to carry that back to camp, much less fit it in his pack, Alistair closes his mouth as the statue begins to glow. It spins slowly, the vines nowhere in evidence, while Zevran frowns at it in deep concentration. The hand wearing the ring is clenched in a tight fist.

The statue begins to spin faster, and Alistair realizes with a start that it's shrinking, collapsing in on itself until, with an almost audible snap, the light vanishes.

Blinking away the afterimages, Alistair walks over to where the statue was and crouches down for a better look. The statue has shrunk to half the size of his fist, looking even more like a rosebud now that it's closer to the right size.

"Huh." It's slightly warm when he picks it up and a little heavier than it should be for its size, but it will definitely fit in his pack with room to spare.

He turns a grin on Zevran, who gives him a faint smile and holds out the gold ring that controls the statue. Whatever it is that has him on edge, it's still bothering him, and Alistair's stomach clenches unpleasantly.

With no idea what the problem is, Alistair chooses to ignore it. He takes the ring from Zevran and replaces it with the flower statue.

Zevran blinks at the statue and then at Alistair. After a moment, a smile turns up one corner of his mouth. "Is this how you plan to win me over? By giving me flowers?"

The tension has eased from his shoulders. Alistair has no more idea why it's disappearing than why it appeared in the first place, but it _is_ fading, and that's what matters.

He grins at Zevran. "Well, it did seem like your kind of flower."

"Indeed." Zevran looks down at the statue and gives it a real, full smile. "Very much my kind of flower, and yet, I have no way to make it anything more."

Alistair hefts the ring so it bounces a little on his palm. "If you're going to make me beg," he says, ignoring the flush creeping up his face, "it's only fair that you have to ask me for something, too."

"Entirely fair," Zevran agrees. He steps close enough to kiss Alistair's cheek and stays up on his toes to murmur, "I might even beg for it."

He dances away, laughing, when Alistair tries to grab him. His face is lit up, all the tension gone, and at that moment, the only thing Alistair wants in the entire world is to kiss him until it hurts. And then maybe kiss him some more anyway.

Zevran doesn't try very hard to get away.


End file.
